A Shade of Vampire 81 A Bringer of Night - Bella Forrest Page 0,5

their spell. Not to mention other Aeternae. People I grew up with. People I thought to be good and valiant. This world is not what I’d thought, and I’m stunned it took your arrival here for all this ugliness to come out into the light for everyone to see.”

“I bet you wish we never landed on Visio.” I scoffed, bitterly amused.

Valaine didn’t appear to find it funny. She gave me a reprimanding scowl, her gaze set on my face. It made my heartbeat quicken. “Meeting you has been the greatest moment of my personal history, Tristan. You’ve opened my eyes to worlds beyond Visio, to different cultures and mentalities. You’ve been by my side since day one, and I am so grateful… there aren’t enough words to convey how I truly feel. Had it not been for you, I would probably be dead by now. The Darklings would’ve gotten the drop on me, especially since I wasn’t even aware they were after me.”

I took a few minutes to mull it over. Valaine had a point. The Darklings’ plans would’ve advanced without me or my people. They would’ve gone after her. They would’ve found an opening, a weak moment… a few seconds would’ve been all they needed for the deadly blow. The first time they’d gone after Valaine, they’d had to deal with me, too. The second time, as well. And the third. And so on.

“I’ve been quite the thorn in their side, come to think of it,” I murmured.

“And I wouldn’t have it any other way.” Valaine offered me a broad smile. Faint dimples sank into her cheeks, accentuated by the pure black of her hair.

Looking ahead, I noticed the soldiers occasionally glancing at the woods sprawling to our left. “If the Darklings are northbound, perhaps we should have a group of soldiers moving through the forest,” I suggested. “We haven’t found any traces of ghouls yet, but I have a feeling we will soon enough. Especially if we have boots on the ground over there,” I added, pointing at the woods.

Valaine nodded. “I agree. The Darklings could move between the road and the forest in a bid to lose any trackers. The earth is soft and damp in there.”

She called out to one of the lieutenants and asked for a small group of soldiers to go into the woods and move at our pace. If we covered both areas at the same time, we had a better chance of coming across ghoul tracks—especially if my suspicions were true, and the Darklings allowed the creatures to hunt, sheltered by the nearby trees.

We watched as six gold guards rode their horses across the slim strip of grass before vanishing into the dark forest. I could still hear them—they didn’t go too far—but they were out of sight, checking for traces of Darklings.

“As for what we should do when we catch up with the Darklings, I’m afraid we’ll have to decide on the spot,” I said, after a long pause. “We’ll have to see with our own eyes what their capabilities are in terms of combat.”

“Most importantly, we’ll have to see whether we can wait for my father or not.” Valaine frowned. “Once we reach them, we cannot let them escape. Assuming their death magic can help them cheat against our forces, we simply can’t take any chances.”

That meant we’d have to engage them as soon as we found them. I had a feeling the Darklings were moving north solely for the purpose of finding a spot to virtually disappear. They’d done it before, and they were bound to do it again. The disaster in Astoria had thrown them off their game, but that didn’t mean they’d run out of options.

On the contrary. They likely had even more dangerous aces up their sleeves. Valaine was right, though. We couldn’t hesitate. As soon as we found the Darklings, we’d have to take action against them and capture Zoltan. I wondered about my sister whenever the treacherous Aeternae’s name popped into my head. I worried about her.

Esme was strong, and she had Kalon by her side. Perhaps it was time I worried more about myself and Valaine. Our small army was likely to have trouble against the Darklings’ ghouls and death magic. I’d already given basic anti-ghoul training to the Aeternae under our command—I’d taught them to recognize the tracks, the air shimmers, and all the other small signs of ghoulish presence. I’d taught them to decapitate the fiends and rip them apart, if